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A council offered a jailed sex offender the chance to play a part in the future of the child of a woman he raped, it has emerged.

The rapist, who was part of a grooming gang in the North of the country and has no parental responsibility for his son, was contacted by the local authority to give him a chance to see the boy, a Times investigation has uncovered.

To protect the child the names of the parents and of the local authority have been withheld.

The man featured in a criminal trial which saw several men of Pakistani origin found guilty of sex offences against numerous vulnerable women, including the boy’s mother.

Upon hearing the news the woman said she was “extremely distressed” that he had been contacted, despite giving evidence against him in court for raping her when she was 15.

“I was gobsmacked” she told the paper. “The council knew what he did to me and to other vulnerable girls. They knew he was behind bars and a risk to my son, who wanted nothing to do with him, but they bent over backwards to include him in the case. I felt angry and scared for my son.”

A family court judge last year heard the child’s case. The council was seeking a case order with the support of his mother, who was unable to cope with the troubled boy’s complex needs and agreed that he would receive greater protection in a residential placement.

By law the local authority is obliged to contact all “respondents” when such an application is made.

Baroness Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, described it as a “perverse situation” adding: “This appears to be a case in which a victim of the worst sexual violence faced the prospect of continuing to be abused by her perpetrator, this time via the family courts.”

Louise Haigh, the shadow police and crime minister, said that the council’s decision to offer the serial rapist a role in the proceedings was “appallingly insensitive”.

The Ministry of Justice said it was investigating whether the incident was the result of a social worker’s error or systemic failings.